


Blessings in Disguise

by Shi_Toyu



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Avengers Mansion, BAMF Tony Stark, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Bucky Barnes Returns, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, Identity Reveal, M/M, Protective Tony Stark, Secret Identity, Secrets, Team Dynamics, Team Feels, The Team Fucks Up, Tony Stark Does What He Wants, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, mix of movies and comics, tony is Trying, tony just wants to help
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-24 00:27:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19162087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shi_Toyu/pseuds/Shi_Toyu
Summary: When Bucky Barnes is found and brought back to the Avengers mansion, Tony just wants to help. The more questions he asks, though, the more his team seems to pull away from him. At least Iron Man and the Winter Soldier are getting along.





	Blessings in Disguise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MassiveSpaceWren](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MassiveSpaceWren/gifts).



> For the amazing and wonderful MassiveSpaceWren, who commissioned this piece and several others. This is the last one on the docket and I hope you enjoy!

When Tony had first renovated the old family mansion into a living space and headquarters for the team, he hadn’t really thought about non-combatants ever living there. He’d wanted a place where the team could be close together without the oversight of SHIELD. Maybe it was because he was one of the only members that had a secret identity, but he wasn’t exactly wild about the thought of SHIELD monitoring their every move. (Not to mention the fact that he could provide _much_ better accommodations.) So, under the guise of Iron Man’s employer and the team’s de facto benefactor, Tony had done just that.

Then Steve had brought home Bucky Barnes.

On a joint mission with Natasha and Falcon, Steve had raided a Hydra research lab only to find his best friend, apparently cryogenically frozen. Tony had been sure the guy was a clone at first, certainly not the real deal. The real Bucky Barnes had fallen from a moving train and into a mountain gorge. Nobody could have survived that. Even if he’d miraculously survived the fall, he would have died from exposure to the elements before rescue teams managed to get to him. Steve assured Tony this was no fake, though. He knew things only Bucky could know. Somehow, Hydra had found him and kept him alive, used him as a test subject and spent the last seventy years torturing him.

The haunted look in Barnes’s eyes certainly supported that line of thinking.

Reluctant, but unwilling to turn away someone in need, Tony set up a room in the mansion for Barnes and resolved to keep an eye on him. He wasn’t going to let anyone hurt his team.

The mansion was, of course, set up specifically to enable those who wished to keep their identities a secret to _keep that secret_. This meant that JARVIS didn’t monitor any of the private quarters, even those of the people who had no qualms with sharing who they really were. (Though, in Natasha’s case, Tony wasn’t sure it would make a difference even if JARVIS monitored her every second of every day. She had so many identities Tony wasn’t sure he’d ever _really_ know which one she’d been born with.) This courtesy, of course, extended to Barnes.

Considering Barnes barely ever left his rooms, usually only ever to go directly to Steve’s, that meant Tony didn’t have many opportunities to interact with him. He knew Steve wouldn’t like it if he caught wind of Tony trying to poke around at Barnes, and Natasha was more likely to leave Tony twisted up and re-examining his life than give him any answers, which left only Falcon for him to talk to in an attempt to figure Barnes out.

“I don’t know what I can tell you that wasn’t already in my report,” Falcon told him when Tony caught up with him in the communal kitchen, making breakfast in full uniform except for his wings. Red Wing stood on the back of one of the barstools, watching them curiously. “That place was fucked up, man. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Tony frowned. He wanted to ask questions like what kind of equipment was there, but he doubted Falcon would be able to give him a satisfactory answer. Not that he thought Falcon was dumb, just that no one on the team other than Bruce would probably be able to manage it. He really needed to get around to installing recording devices in their suits. Having film to review like he did with the Iron Man armor would have countless uses.

He heaved a sigh and rubbed his eyes. A headache was building inside his skull, but he’d napped at least thirty-six hours ago so he shouldn’t feel this exhausted. He headed toward the coffee machine.

“It’s too bad the facility blew up before you three were able to recover any of the files. That would’ve made this so much easier. Honestly, what kind of villain even has a self-destruct function on their hideout these days?”

Falcon hesitated in his response just a beat too long.

“Yeah. Right.” Tony turned to give him a narrow-eyed look, but Falcon was turned away from him, focus intent on the potatoes he was frying. “What are you looking for anyway?”

A spy, Falcon was not. He should leave that to Nat. There was something just a bit too carefully casual in his tone. Tony hadn’t been thinking they were hiding something from him, but he certainly was now. He didn’t think any of them would do something deliberately to hurt the team, but there was something they didn’t want him to know. Had they destroyed the files on purpose? Had the facility even self-destructed or had they blown it up?

“Oh, you know, everything tells you something. We’ll probably never know how much correspondence there was in their systems. It might’ve been able to lead us to other strongholds or given us an idea of other Hydra plots. And, of course, it was a research facility. Who knows what they were working on in there?” He paused for a moment for dramatic effect. “And I’m worried about Barnes.”

Falcon turned, his surprise showing even past his mask.

“Barnes?”

Tony shrugged as he cradled his coffee close to his chest, pretending not to notice the alarmed note in his teammate’s voice.

“They had him for _seventy years_. I’d be worried about anyone Hydra had their grubby little hands on for five minutes. I never see him around and I- I don’t know. I guess I feel like I might be able to help him more if I knew what had happened to him.”

The tense line of Falcon’s shoulders relaxed.

“You’re a good guy, Mr. Stark.”

Tony snorted.

“Don’t sound so surprised.”

.

Tony was inside of the Iron Man armor, running some system diagnostics, when Steve approached him.

“Hey, Shellhead,” he greeted warmly. “Got a minute?”

“For you? I’ve got two. What’s up, Winghead?”

His chest warmed at their little inside joke. As Tony, he and Steve had never really managed to hit it off. They were polite and friendly with each other, but they were more acquaintances than anything that could be considered friends. As Iron Man, he and Steve couldn’t be mistaken for anything _but_ friends. Of course, that was about par for the course with everyone on the team, with the possible exceptions of maybe Bruce, Thor, and Nat. Bruce because he understood Tony on an intellectual level. Thor because he’d never met anyone in his entire life that he didn’t want to be friends with. Natasha… well, Tony liked to think they were friends, but she was terrifying enough that he sometimes had his doubts. Still, she’d stabbed that one guy trying to kidnap him in the eye and that had to be a sign of some affection, right?

“It’s about Mr. Stark,” Steve said, face sobering. “It’s a bit delicate.”

Tony sat up straighter, bringing the armor out of its lounging position on the (reinforced) couch.

“What happened?”

What had he done now? It’d been a week since his conversation with Falcon and he liked to think he’d been pretty subtle in his investigations since then. Or maybe this was an unrelated complaint. It wouldn’t be the first time one of the team had approached Iron Man with an issue because they didn’t feel comfortable talking about it with ‘Mr. Stark.’ That was fine. Tony was okay with having the team as his friends in whatever capacity he could. If that meant most of them only liked one of his personas, then that was something he could live with.

“Nothing, really,” Steve rushed to assure, sitting down on the couch with Iron Man and looking awkward. “I know you and he don’t exactly see eye-to-eye all the time, but you know him better than any of the rest of us. I was just hoping to get your opinion on something.”

“Okay…” Tony let the silence hang between them for a beat before realizing Steve wasn’t going to continue without prompting. “And that would be?”

Steve huffed out a breath, dragging one large hand over his face.

“Sorry. I’m just still struggling a bit with how to phrase this. Mr. Stark is interested in helping Bucky, which is very generous! But I…”

“You don’t trust him.”

Tony tried to ignore how much that stung. Steve’s wince told him he’d hit the nail on the head.

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” he tried to explain, but Tony waved him off.

“Hey, it’s okay. If anyone can understand that sentiment, it’s me.”

People hadn’t been trusting him for as long as he could remember. He was used to it. His dad hadn’t trusted him not to get in the way. The Board hadn’t trusted him not to screw everything up when he took over after Howard’s death. Obie hadn’t trusted him not to screw him over and had decided to have Tony killed before he could. The public didn’t trust that he had really turned over a new leaf and was trying to do better.

Steve might not trust Tony Stark, but he trusted Iron Man, and that was enough. It had to be, because it was all Tony was ever going to get.

“I don’t mean to be ungrateful for everything he’s done for the team,” Steve admitted, looking ashamed of himself as only Captain America could. “And I don’t think he’s a bad guy! Just… Bucky’s special, and he’s been through so much. If anything else happened to him…”

Tony nudged Steve’s shoulder, if only to get that look off his face.

“Don’t worry about it. As I said, I get it. So, what do you want? I can tell him to back off, if you’d like.”

Steve looked slightly alarmed by that suggestion.

“Oh, no. He hasn’t _done_ anything, except ask Falcon a few questions. I guess… I guess I don’t really know what I want.”

Tony really, really wanted to ask Steve about what they were hiding. He might tell Iron Man when he wouldn’t tell Tony as himself, but that would be the worst kind of abusing Steve’s trust. Maybe he could nudge Steve in the right direction, though.

“Look,” he said, “Mr. Stark can be a bit… much, when he latches onto something.” Pepper and Rhodey had told him that plenty enough times for him to feel assured it was true. “He knows something happened at that base that you three aren’t telling him. He’s never done well with not having all the answers. If you tell him, he’ll probably just let it go and lose interest.”

Steve blanched.

“He _what?_ ”

Too late, Tony realized he may have miscalculated. Whatever it was his teammates were hiding about Bucky Barnes, it was way bigger than he’d suspected.

.

The next weeks passed in a near-haze as Tony tried to do damage control. While Barnes was finally venturing out into the common areas, though always with Steve, Falcon, or Natasha at his side, it was sparing at best and never, even when Tony was present. Even Iron Man, Barnes seemed a bit wary of. He wasn’t the only one avoiding Tony, though. His teammates seemed to draw away from him even more than they did normally, Clint following Natasha’s lead with a trust that they’d formed over years of working together.

To make matters even more complicated, Natasha had decided to bring home a stray of her own. A masked, leather-clad, Russian, BDSM-themed, assassin stray.

“He’s the Winter Soldier. He was one of my teachers in the Red Room,” was all she said by way of explanation.

It was Clint who had filled the rest of them in on exactly how big of a deal the Winter Soldier was. A former Soviet agent with various high-profile assassinations to his name over the past fifty years, he’d apparently decided to swap sides.

Adding him to the roster was going to be a PR _nightmare_. Good thing Tony had never backed down from a challenge. Besides, he was the last person to deny someone a second chance. Honestly, he was surprised Steve let it happen with barely a moment’s hesitance. Tony would have expected at least a bit of a talk concerning how they tried to keep casualties to a minimum and the Winter Soldier would have to follow that edict if he wanted to join up. The guy didn’t even get a _trial period_ like Ant Man and the Wasp were currently undergoing. Ridiculous. (Of course, Tony thought it was a bit ridiculous that Wasp was still in the trial period at all, but she’d said she wouldn’t accept full team membership until Ant Man had it, too. They didn’t have long left.)

In other surprises, this time pleasant, the Winter Soldier worked _really well_ with the team. Even more, he and Iron Man fell into a routine like they’d been fighting together for years. Tony was pretty sure it had something to do with the Winter Soldier working with a rather wide range of individuals over the years and having an extremely adaptive style, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed it any less. Even out of the field, they seemed to get along better than anyone could have expected.

.

“Manchurian Candidate!” Tony called gleefully as he spotted the masked man in the common room. “What a pleasant surprise! What brings you out of your cave?”

In truth, JARVIS had alerted him that the other man was out of his rooms and Tony had hurried into the armor in order to catch him before he slunk away again. The Winter Soldier spent about as much time out in the open as Barnes did, though Tony had noticed he tended to stick around a bit longer if Iron Man showed up.

“I was looking for you,” Winter said in that gruff, slightly threatening way of his. “Widow said you’d been shot.”

Tony had, actually, on his last foray into a terrorist’s stronghold to destroy another batch of black market Stark Industries weapons; this time in the Congo. The bullet has managed to sneak between the plates of his armor where some of the heavier artillery had shifted them around. It was only a graze, thankfully enough, but he had a row of tidy, self-inflicted stitches holding his right side together.

“Aw, were you worried about me?” he teased, still utterly delighted by the fact that this legendary assassin let him get away with it every time. “I knew all that talk about having a heart of ice was just bluffing. Or did my winning personality just melt it?”

It was impossible to see Winter’s expression past his mask and goggles, but the suit’s sensors allowed Tony to pick up on his well-hidden snort of laughter.

“Well, there’s no need,” he reassured. “The suit is pretty tough, you know. Mr. Stark is patching it up now, hence the older model I’m sporting. Knowing him, he’s probably adding in a bunch of upgrades, too. Who knows? Maybe he’ll finally add those grips so I can fly you around a bit easier.”

No one needed to know that he already _had_ and the only part of the process that still needed to be completed was JARVIS feeding all the specs through the fabricator.

The Winter Soldier cocked his head to the side, giving Tony a long look. Of course, Tony was pretty sure his faceplate gave away about as much as Winter’s mask did.

“You’ll have to take me for a flight when he gets done, then.”

Tony’s lips quirked upward.

“I think I can manage that.”

.

Tony did his best not to ask too many questions about the Winter Soldier’s past. He’d proved himself enough by now that it wasn’t a security concern and, past that, it just wasn’t any of Tony’s damn business. He didn’t have to know any of the details to know that Winter had lived a hard life, though. One didn’t become a professional assassin if their life was all sunshine and roses. That’s just not how it worked.

What Tony did know was that Winter could more often be found wandering the mansion at night than during the day, kept awake by haunting memories. Tony was well familiar with those. On the nights Tony was awake as well, which was most of them, he often found himself climbing into the armor and heading to the common areas to keep Winter company. While they worked well in the field and were friendly even off of it, Tony thought it was these late-night meetings that really forged their bond.

“I’ve killed a lot of people,” Winter told him one night that’d grown so late it was quickly becoming morning. “A lot of people.”

Tony was quiet for a moment, unsure if Winter just wanted to talk or if he wanted Tony’s comments. He seemed to be waiting for some reaction, though, so Tony chose his words carefully.

“I’m not sure there are any of us here who haven’t,” he allowed. “It weighs on you.”

It weighed on all of them. Bruce’s guilt was almost always a palpable cloud hanging over him. Tony, actually as Tony, and Natasha had discussed her philosophy of red in her ledger at length. It was a concept Tony could get behind. He knew Steve’s hard line about not taking lives in battle unless absolutely necessary stemmed from the things he’d done during World War II, the things he hadn’t had a choice about doing in the name of freedom and fighting the good fight. The others were no different.

With the exception of probably just Squirrel Girl and Spiderman, Tony couldn’t think of any hero who hadn’t gotten their hands dirty at some point. True, there were those like the Punisher and Deadpool, who walked the darker road of vigilantism by choice, but the majority of them didn’t _like_ when they were put into those situations. There were a great many of them who, like Tony, would give just about anything if they could change the past.

“I know,” Winter spoke slowly, carefully, and Tony gave him his full attention, “that someone else would have killed those people, if I hadn’t. They didn’t deserve to die, but they threatened Hydra’s goals, so they couldn’t be allowed to live.”

Tony’s eyebrows rose and he was suddenly very, very glad that the Iron Man armor hid his facial expressions.

“You worked for Hydra?”

He’d known the Winter Soldier had worked for the Soviets and the Red Room, and that they weren’t exactly better than Hydra, but it was hard to choke back the immediate, instinctive reaction to the name. He didn’t have the history with them that Steve had, but still. Winter’s shoulders tensed.

“Not by choice,” he bit out. “They’re the ones that _made me_ \- That-“

He cut himself off, folding forward over his knees and hands fisting his hair. Tony froze, unsure what to do. Winter didn’t… _react_ to things like this, at least not that Tony had been around to see. And Tony had never been particularly good at dealing with emotions in general. That just wasn’t his forte.

“Okay,” he started awkwardly. “Do you… want to talk about it?”

That was a thing people asked in situations like this, wasn’t it? Tony was pretty sure it was. Winter would probably have been better off talking to literally anyone else on the team about this, particularly Natasha. He’d chosen to bring it up with Tony, though, and so he’d do his best not to let Winter down.

Winter took a deep, shuddering breath.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’ve never talked about it with anyone before, ‘cept, well... I have a notebook and I-I write things down, but I-“ He gave a broken-sounding laugh. “I don’t even talk to my therapist about it. I can’t.”

Tony hadn’t known Winter had a therapist, either. He was learning all sorts of things tonight, it seemed.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

He didn’t want Winter to feel pressured into it. Tony’s curiosity was definitely piqued, but that didn’t mean he wanted Winter doing anything he wasn’t comfortable with. That would make him the shittiest kind of person. If Winter wanted to talk, Tony would listen, but it wasn’t an obligation. Not by any means.

“I used to be a good man,” Winter nearly moaned, the words muffled all the more by his mask so that Tony had to strain to make them out. “Then they _took_ me, and they _twisted_ me and _broke_ me and now I don’t know what I am.”

His head rose to turn an imploring gaze Tony way, as though looking for answers Tony didn’t have. Metal gauntlets curled into fists as Tony restrained himself from reaching out like he wanted to. He couldn’t know if that was something Winter wanted. Winter gave a wet-sounding laugh.

“You know what the worst part is?” he asked, and then continued without waiting for a response. “The worst part is that some of the people Hydra sent me to kill, I don’t even regret. The innocents, yes, sure, but I was used in internal power struggles, too. Maybe they didn’t deserve to die, but there was something satisfying in killing them. What the hell does that say about me, huh?”

Unable to just sit by any longer, Tony finally gave in and reached out. He wrapped an arm around Winter’s shoulders and pulled him into his side. It was a bit awkward at first, since the metal of the Iron Man armor was too hard to be comfortable and probably a bit chilly, but then Winter melted into him. His head fell to Tony’s shoulder as Tony shifted his arm down to Winter’s waist, supporting his spine to make it at least somewhat more bearable.

“It says you’re human,” Tony decided on. “They hurt you,” because that much was clear, even if he didn’t know the details of how, “and it was some, small way for you to get back at them. I think that’s pretty understandable.”

Winter made a non-committal noise and Tony bit his lip. He let the silence stretch between them for a minute before steeling himself and speaking up again. If Winter could bring himself to share something so personal and private, then maybe Tony could, too.

“The Ten Rings,” he began, haltingly, but the words coming more easily as he continued. “They hurt Mr. Stark pretty badly while he was their captive. When he got back and built Iron Man, put me inside of it, he wanted to make sure they could never hurt anyone ever again. He wanted me to wipe them out, and I wasn’t exactly opposed.”

Winter tilted his head up to look at him but didn’t lift his head from Tony’s shoulder. He also didn’t speak up, so Tony continued.

“The first time I flew to Afghanistan in the suit, it was because Mr. Stark had gotten word that the Then Rings were attacking a village. I went there to stop them and to destroy their weapons caches. When I got there, though, they’d taken hostages, human shields pulled from among the locals. One of them-“ Tony had to suck in a shuddered breath as the imagery of the moment invaded his mind, even after all this time, “One of them was holding onto a boy, couldn’t have been more that seven, and had a gun pressed to his head.”

“Kids are always the worst,” Winter commiserated.

Tony didn’t doubt for a moment that he was speaking from experience and he found himself mentally cursing Hydra all over again, the filthy vultures. He couldn’t let himself get distracted, though.

“I didn’t even hesitate,” he informed Winter with an almost disinterested tone. “I had these miniaturized missiles in the shoulders of the armor, basically just bullets with auto targeting and no need for a barrel, if we’re being perfectly honest. I put one between his eyes and I made sure the others would never bother anyone ever again. I didn’t know their names or whether or not they had families waiting for them, and I didn’t care. It didn’t matter because the only thing that mattered was putting them in the ground and _stopping_ them.”

He knew it wasn’t quite the same as what Winter had gone through, that the men he’d killed in that village hadn’t been innocents, but he hoped he’d been able to draw a decent enough parallel. He couldn’t exactly tell Winter about the people his weapons had killed without him even knowing about it unless he wanted to blow his cover. He would have to settle for this example instead, for the first time he’d _chosen_ to kill people, not just by ignorance or necessity to survive.

Winter took a few minutes to mull the story over, just taking it in. At least that was what Tony hoped he was doing.

“If I could find the Hydra personal responsible for making me into _this_ ,” he didn’t have to elaborate, “I don’t think I would hesitate to kill them, either. Almost all of them are dead already, I’m pretty sure, but if I encountered one of the remaining ones…”

Tony understood what Winter couldn’t seem to say. It wouldn’t be a question of hesitation, if he ever found himself in that position, but of whether or not he’d be able to hold himself back. While understandable, it left Tony at a bit of a loss for how to respond without endorsing homicide. Not that it wasn’t tempting, but they were the Avengers. They had to hold themselves to a higher standard.

“If it helps,” he finally decided on, “whatever they did to you, it clearly didn’t work.”

Winter actually flinched at that, and Tony was sure he’d pull away, but he only went far enough to be able to get a good look at Tony’s mask.

“I was their pet murder-bot for _decades_ ,” he spat out, scathing in his defensiveness. “I’m pretty sure that qualifies as it working.”

Tony squeezed the arm he still had around Winter’s waist reassuringly.

“And yet, now you’re here with us, choosing a different life, instead of still trapped in that Hell. I think that says rather a lot.”

There was another stretch of silence between them, which was quickly becoming a key characteristic of the conversation, before Winter settled back down against him again.

“You have an odd way of looking at things.”

Tony’s grin threatened to split his cheeks.

“Maybe, but it doesn’t mean I’m not still right.”

.

Somehow, inexplicably, that started a pattern. Now, when they would meet up in the middle of the night, Winter would share another piece of his past. It built a picture that was as heartbreaking as it was horrifying. Truly. The things Winter had been through, the huge gaps in his memories from where Hydra had wiped his mind over and over again… Tony felt ill just listening to it.

Winter was wracked with guilt over everything he’d done while under Hydra’s control, because of his _brainwashing_. It could have been read in every line of his body by a blind man. Tony didn’t think he had anything to feel guilty over, though. Yes, he had done terrible things, but he wouldn’t have done any of them if he’d had a choice in the matter. He’d been used as a weapon by sick, twisted individuals, but that didn’t make him anything like them.

No, Tony saw Winter as so impossibly strong for having broken away from that control and for working to take his life back. It was incredibly inspirational, for all that it was depressing that Winter had to go through it in the first place. It said so much about who Winter was at his core, what he was really like, that it just about took Tony’s breath away. Winter was _stunning_ to have been able to overcome so much. True, he still had a long way to go, but Tony was sure he’d make it.

As he listened and took in each little morsel that Winter gave him, though, Tony couldn’t help but think of another of the tower’s residences. Was this anything similar to what Hydra had done to Barnes? Had he and Winter ever crossed paths when they were both captives? Winter certainly hadn’t mentioned it if they had, but he had to know that Barnes was here at the mansion. It wasn’t exactly a secret. Tony wondered if it was awkward when they encountered each other, both knowing at least a few slivers of the other’s past.

Once the idea was in there, Tony couldn’t get the thoughts out of his mind. He’d mentally spin in circles, each realization setting off a chain reaction that sent him down another rabbit hole. Maybe that was why, mid-conversation with Winter about an unrelated topic, he just blurted out the thing that was bugging him most.

“Have you considered talking to Barnes about what you went through?”

Winter went very still before slowly lowering the book he’d been vehemently urging Tony to read down on the coffee table.

“You mean with Hydra?”

As if Tony could be referring to anything else.

“Yeah.”

“No,” Winter replied, a little too bluntly to be just casual. “Why would I?”

Tony raised his gauntleted hands in surrender, signifying peace.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I just thought the two of you might have some similar experiences that you could talk about. Mr. Stark worries about the guy, and I hardly see him. I’m just… I’m not sure he’s dealing with things well. He hides away all the time and it’s not healthy. Maybe it’s a terrible idea, but I thought maybe you might be easier for him to talk to.”

Winter was silent for a long time, tilting his head down so that his expression was even more obscured than usual.

“Maybe,” he allowed, though he didn’t sound convinced. “I’ll think about it.”

Tony didn’t believe the words for a second, but he didn’t push. He was a bit afraid of what might happen if he did.

.

Tony was no fool. He might have some gaps in his knowledge when it came to human interaction, but he still knew quite a bit. There was no way you got to be as successful a businessman as he was without it. It was just in the close, personal interactions that he suffered. He got awkward, either not sharing enough or sharing _way too much_. He didn’t know where the usual lines were drawn and it often got him exasperated looks from the people who knew him well, like with Pepper and the giant rabbit. (Which he still didn’t understand why she didn’t like.) He did his best and, usually, that was enough. Rhodey barely even rolled his eyes anymore whenever Tony bought him a new car.

So, yeah, Tony had noticed that the team was pulling away from him, or at least Tony Stark him. It wasn’t all of them, thank goodness, but Steve and Falcon were definitely keeping their distance and Natasha and Clint kept tensing up around him. Tony tried not to take it personally. Whatever was going on, he had no doubt that Barnes was a part of it. While he still didn’t know why, Tony had overstepped when he’d started asking questions about the mission where they’d found him in that Hydra facility. He’d tried to show as best he could that he was backing off, not asking any more questions, but it hadn’t done much to ease their caution. Apparently having let slip that he knew they were hiding something was all it took.

And yeah, okay, fine. It hurt. Try as Tony might, he couldn’t fully brush aside their behavior, not when he kept catching Natasha and Clint exchanging glances and Barnes had taken up avoiding him all together. The distrust didn’t seem to extend to Iron Man, which was a small blessing, but it stung that they so obviously didn’t want him around or accept him.

He was their landlord and benefactor, but that was it. He wasn’t their teammate, wasn’t their friend. They’d much rather keep him at a distance and not be forced to interact any more than absolutely necessary. That was fine.

Tony could give them that.

.

It was rare that Winter approached Iron Man seeming hesitant. For one thing, Winter just wasn’t a very hesitant person. He was often very forward with both his words and his mannerisms. For another, they’d come to something that Tony, at least, liked to think of as a friendship of sorts. They had a rapport. Winter had been out in the common areas of the mansion more and more as the weeks passed, clearly adjusting far better than Barnes, who was still keeping holed up in his quarters. (Not that Tony was bitter about it.) There was no reason for Winter to be hesitant.

“What’s up, buttercup?” he asked when Winter didn’t broach the subject right away.

Like ripping off a Band-Aid, Tony would rather just get it over with. He was sick and tired of members of his team pussy-footing around him like he was some wild animal about to snap at any minute. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to take it if they started doing it to Iron Man, too.

Winter shifted his weight in a rare, overt show of nerves.

“I haven’t seen Mr. Stark around lately.”

Whatever Tony had been expecting him to say, it wasn’t that.

“What?”

Winter cringed, of all things.

“I’ll generally catch glimpses of him here or there, but I haven’t seen him.”

Irritation flared in Tony’s chest. It was completely irrational, and he knew it, but he also couldn’t help it. How was it that the people he’d fought beside for years, who lived in the mansion he’d renovated and provided for them, whose every whim he funded, not bat an eye when he vanished, but an international assassin did? The others had all but driven him off and here Winter was, asking after a man he’d barely even met.

“Why do you want to know?”

The words came out harsher than he’d intended, and Tony instantly regretted it.

“Sorry,” he apologized, almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth, dragging a hand over the faceplate of the suit and letting his shoulders visibly droop. “I’ve just been a bit on edge lately.”

Winter’s forehead crinkled, the only visible tell of his furrowed brow.

“Is something wrong?”

His shift into a mission mindset was palpable, his entire body language changing and one hand drifting toward the knife belt around his thigh.

“No, not like that,” Tony assured him. “There’s just been some…” he waved his hand around as if to encompass the mansion, “tension between Mr. Stark and the team lately and it ends up falling on my shoulders whenever that happens. I’m sure it’ll sort itself out eventually.”

He probably shouldn’t take as much comfort as he did in how easily lies fell from his lips. At least Winter’s stance had eased out of full combat readiness.

“Oh. Maybe this is a bad time, then.”

Well, that was curious. Fuck, he hoped he hadn’t somehow done something to offend Winter, too. He didn’t even have somewhere to start on what that might be.

“A bad time? For what?”

“There’s something I need to talk to Mr. Stark about, something important. I should have done it a while ago, but… I was too busy sorting myself out to face him, if I’m being perfectly honestly. It’s no excuse, though. I was hoping to right that.”

Tony didn’t really have any idea what to do with that.

“Okay,” he said, brain churning as he tried to process. “Let me head down to the workshop and see if any of his projects are liable to explode if he leaves them alone for a few minutes, then.”

.

It didn’t take Tony long to get down to his lab, change out of the suit and undersuit into jeans and a t-shirt, and head back upstairs to the common floor. He almost expected Winter to have disappeared, but the man was still there, waiting patiently. He wasn’t _relaxed_ , but that wasn’t exactly unexpected. Winter was never fully relaxed around anyone but Natasha, really. He got close with Iron Man and had formed some strange relationship with Steve that Tony hadn’t quite been able to figure out, but he still kept the rest of them at a distance. Tony Stark even more so.

“Iron Man said you wanted to talk to me?”

Winter’s mask and goggles gave away nothing, his face angled perfectly to cast a glare across his lenses and obscure his eyes.

“He didn’t come back up with you?”

Had Winter expected him to? Tony could get JARVIS to control the suit, if that were the case. There were protocols in place for when they needed to be seen in the same place at the same time, or even in different places at the same time.

“He seemed to think you might want to keep whatever this was private. I could call him up, though, if you’d prefer…”

He let the offer hang in the air for a moment, but Winter shook his head.

“No, he was right. There’s something I need to tell you.”

“Okay?”

All this pussyfooting around the issue was making Tony nervous, he could admit. Whatever Winter wanted to talk to him about, it had to be serious.

“You know I taught Natasha in the Red Room,” Winter began, shoulders tense and spine straight. His feet were planted shoulder width apart and his hands were clasped behind his back. He looked like a soldier delivering a report that he knew would get him court marshalled. “What we didn’t tell the team was that I was on loan to them from Hydra. They’re the ones who- who created me, who turned me into this monster. I didn’t want it, but they didn’t exactly give me much of a choice.”

Iron Man already knew that, of course, which meant Tony Stark may or may not. The team knew he had access to all the armor’s recordings, but he didn’t always review them. Was this what Winter wanted Tony to know? It didn’t make sense. He already knew Winter had worked for the bad guys. What difference did it make knowing who he had worked for? Did he want Tony to know it hadn’t been willingly? Why did it matter to him what Tony thought?

“They threatened you?”

Winter’s bark of laughter was a dark, bitter thing.

“They _brainwashed_ me. They strapped me into a chair and coursed electricity through my brain to burn away my memories. I couldn’t remember my name, by best friend’s face, my family… They took away _everything_. I couldn’t even remember that I was a _person_ and not just a tool, an asset.”

Tony felt ill.

“That’s…”

He didn’t have the words for what it was, but hellish seemed a good place to start. Winter wasn’t done yet.

“They trained me, enhanced me, turned me into their perfect little soldier. And then they started sending me out on missions. Do you know what they used to call me?” He raised his metal arm, silver fingers curled into a tight ball. “The Fist of Hydra.”

Tony didn’t want to hear this, didn’t want to imagine his friend having to go through something like that. It was awful, horrific. _No one_ should have to go through something like that. Hydra were such sick fucks.

“Why-“ he had to clear his throat to get his voice working again. “Why are you telling me this?”

Winter’s head dropped, his hair falling like a curtain.

“Because there’s something you need to know. About December 16th, 1991.”

Tony’s blood went cold. He wasn’t an idiot. Winter bringing up that date, in this context, could only mean one thing.

“No,” he denied, snarled, really. It couldn’t be true. It _couldn’t_. “My parents died in a car accident.”

“They did,” Winter acknowledged, though his tone brought no relief, “but I caused it. At Hydra’s command.”

The whole world spun and tilted, leaving Tony suddenly sitting on the ground, unsure of how he got there. Winter hadn’t come any closer, though, for which he was grateful. He didn’t think he could handle that right now, not after that bombshell.

He wasn’t sure how to even begin to process this information, that Hydra had been behind his parents’ deaths. He could remember every detail of that night with perfect clarity, from the acerbic words he and his father had exchanged before they left to the way he’d laughed in the cop’s face when he was told his parents were dead, too certain that it had to be someone playing a prank on him. Howard Stark couldn’t die in a _car accident_. His mother couldn’t be _gone_.

He’d blamed his father for _years_ for what happened. He’d been drinking, the police report stated. Howard had been drinking and he’d lost control of the car, sending it careening off the side of the road and into a tree. They thought maybe a deer had jumped out in front of it and he’d swerved out of the way, only it had been a bit _too_ out of the way. The funeral parlor had done their best, but Tony had still been able to see the mark on his mother’s forehead where slamming into the dashboard had cracked her skull. It was an image that would forever be burned into his mind and he hated it. He _hated_ it.

“What happened?” he rasped, feeling suddenly desperate. “Tell me how they died.”

Winter shifted uncomfortably, but he didn’t run. At any other moment, Tony might have given him credit for that. Right now, though, he just didn’t have the mental capacity to spare.

“I was on a motorcycle, tailing them,” Winter explained. “I hit the back bumper of the car to send it into a spin and then followed it off the road.” His voice shook, just barely, but Tony was able to notice. It made him feel a bit better, almost, that Winter was not unaffected by what had happened. “Your mother died on impact, but your father… He managed to get out of the car, even though he couldn’t stand up. He just fell to the ground and he- he begged me to help his wife.” Winter’s rough swallow was audible in the silence of the room. “I picked him up and tucked him back in to the driver’s seat and then I-“

He cut himself off, apparently unable to put to words exactly what he’d done. Tony could imagine, though. He’d read the police report. He knew what damage had been done to his parents’ bodies. He knew what Winter had to have done, how he must have slammed Howard’s face into the steering wheel hard enough for the blunt trauma to kill him.

Tony struggled for air.

“You deserved to know,” Winter finally spoke again, quietly, voice laden with guilt. “I had to tell you. If you want me gone-“

“No.” This time it was Tony who cut him off, still huddled on the ground. “I just need time. That’s all. I need time.”

Winter have a sharp nod before Tony buried his face in his knees, still trying to regain control. By the time he looked up again, Winter was gone.

.

Tony hid himself away for days after that, both as himself and as Iron Man. He hid in his lab and he worked and worked and worked. He drank and he stared at the designs for the self-driving car he’d come up with years ago, the one he’d named after his mother because, hey, she’d still be alive if Howard hadn’t been driving that night.

Apparently not.

Fuck.

Tony didn’t even know where to start with trying to process all of this. It was just all so fucked up, between Howard not being to blame for the accident after all, Winter having been the one to do it, and Hydra having been behind it. Tony’s brain kept flitting from one to the next to the other without being able to settle long enough to get any of it under wraps.

He didn’t blame Winter, he didn’t think. He’d been brainwashed, and Tony _knew_ him. Winter wasn’t some psychotic mercenary who enjoyed killing people. He’d still done it, though. Whether or not Winter would have _chosen_ to do it, it was still his hands that’d done the deed. It made Tony feel ill just to think about.

Winter could have gotten away with never telling him, Tony was pretty sure. It wasn’t like Tony thought there was anything suspicious about his parents’ deaths. He wasn’t out there looking for information. He wasn’t even looking for information about Winter, hadn’t been for a while. He’d done a search when Natasha had first brought him in, of course, but nothing recently. Winter hadn’t needed to tell Tony about what happened, to risk being thrown out of the mansion or whatever else Tony might have decided to do to him in retaliation. He’d still decided to tell Tony the truth, though. He’d still decided that Tony deserving to know was more important than his own security.

Tony needed to talk to him.

Not fully trusting himself, Tony donned the armor for the occasion. He didn’t fear for his safety, didn’t think Winter would hurt him, but he needed the wall the armor to put between himself and the rest of the world. He needed that separation for this conversation. Besides, Winter might feel more open to talking to Iron Man than to Tony Stark. Tony needed that right now.

Winter was in his quarters, somewhere he hadn’t been out of much since their conversation. Somehow, Tony thought he was hiding just as much as Tony had been.

“Hey,” Winter greeted tiredly, when he opened the door.

It suddenly occurred to Tony that he had no idea what he wanted to say.

“Hey.”

“Did Mr. Stark send you?”

There was resignation in his voice. He probably thought Tony had reconsidered, that he wanted Winter gone after all.

“No,” Tony told him. “Well, sort of. He’s… having a lot of trouble processing. He doesn’t blame you, though.”

Winter nodded but didn’t seem exactly cheered by the information.

“He should. I did it.”

Tony was familiar enough with self-recrimination to recognize it in Winter’s tone.

“Not by choice. Mr. Stark knows that.”

Winter didn’t look exactly convinced. He didn’t say anything, though, just stepped aside and motioned for Iron Man to come into his apartment. It was surprising, actually. Tony had never been in Winter’s rooms. He was pretty sure no one had been since Winter’s arrival. He stepped cautiously forward, eyebrows rising as he looked around.

Pretty much nothing was changed from the basics that each apartment came equipped with. There was nothing here to make it personal. It felt more like a hotel room than a living space, and an unoccupied one at that. He’d always expected Winter to be keeping his quarters as a safe haven, but it didn’t look like he was any more comfortable here than he was in the rest of the mansion.

Winter closed the door behind him and took a deep, steadying breath.

“Hydra took everything from me,” he said, not looking at Tony as he moved around him and further into the suite, heading for the couch. “I know that I should feel better now, being away from them, but I don’t. Some days I wake up and it’s like I’m right back there, waiting for someone to give me an order. I was a good man, once. A decent one, at least. Now I don’t…”

He sat heavily on the couch and Tony eased down next to him. This wasn’t just another of their late-night talks, but the feeling was similar. It gave him a direction to go in.

“Mr. Stark knows a thing or two about second chances,” Tony found himself saying. “He’s not going to begrudge you yours.”

“I just want to be a _person_ again.”

He sounded so dejected, so lost, that Tony couldn’t help reaching out for him, if only to place one gauntleted hand on Winter’s knee.

“You _are_ a person, Winter. If you weren’t, you’d still be with Hydra.”

“I _would_ still be there if it weren’t for Nat and Steve pulling me out. And Sam, I guess.”

Tony’s brow furrowed.

“What do you mean?”

Winter tensed all over, and Tony realized he hadn’t meant to say that.

“I, uh-“

“No, it’s fine. Forget I asked,” Tony said, pulling his hand back. “I’ll forget I heard anything.”

Winter sat up quickly, reaching out for him.

“No, I-“ he hesitated, and then forged ahead. “I want you to know. I’m tired of all the lies, all the hiding. I can’t live like this.”

He reached up for the strap of his goggles, starting to pull them off, but Tony’s hand flew out to grab his, stopping him. Tony’s hear pounded in his chest.

“Wait! You know Mr. Stark has access to everything the suit sees. It’s always recording.”

He’d told Winter that early on, had made sure all of the Avengers knew, be he had to make sure it was clear. He couldn’t let Winter do this unless he was absolutely sure.

“I know,” Winter said quietly. “It doesn’t bother me. Or, it does, but I want to do it anyway. You first, but then I’ll tell the others, too. Like I said, I’m tired of hiding.”

Slowly, reluctantly, Tony let his hand drop away so Winter could continue. The goggle strap messed up Winter’s hair as they were pulled off, and the smudges of black greasepaint around his eyes seemed to only accentuate their stormy grey color. Tony felt his breath catch as Winter reached for his mask next, undoing the clasp and pulling it away – leaving Tony staring into the face of Bucky Barnes.

“…Oh.”

Winter- _Bucky_ ’s grin was chagrined, but he still managed a small smile.

“It’s been hell, honestly, having to pick and choose who I interact with using which name,” he admitted. “Steve thought it would be best, when they brought me back, if Mr. Stark didn’t know about my past as the Winter Soldier. I wasn’t in any shape to argue, so I just went with it. I hated seeing you all out in the field without me, though. Natasha was the one to suggest bringing in the Winter Soldier as a separate person, just to test the waters. It wasn’t supposed to be a long-term thing.”

The Iron Man armor hid a lot of things. At the moment, it hid just how unnaturally still Tony’d gone, leaving Bucky to continue talking. A feeling of dread pooled in his gut.

“Did they know?” Tony asked sharply, maybe too sharply. “Steve and Natasha and Sam, did they know about m-Mr. Stark’s parents?”

He hoped not, but, the moment he saw Bucky’s expression, the dread in his gut turned to lead.

“I don’t know, not for sure,” Bucky admitted. “I don’t think Sam did, but Natasha and Steve at least suspected. When I-when I remembered things a bit more clearly, I talked to Steve about it.”

But Bucky had said he should have told Tony about his parents much earlier, so he’d spent at least some length of time sitting on the information. And Steve, at least, had known for however long that was and said _nothing._

The betrayal stung.

“Did you ask him not to say anything?” he forced himself to ask, voice tight in the attempt to keep it steady, keep himself from betraying anything.

He knew Bucky could hear the strain.

“I said I didn’t know what to do,” Bucky said slowly, clearly choosing his words with care. “I was scared, of losing everything, and I was scared of talking about it.”

“And Steve suggested you wait.”

It wasn’t a question, even though Bucky nodded in answer. Tony knew Steve, knew him well enough to know he’d do anything for a friend in need, especially if that friend was Bucky. Well, he supposed now he knew that Tony Stark didn’t rank on that list. He stood abruptly.

“I need to go.”

“Wait, Iron Man! I’m sorry, I didn’t-“

Tony held up one hand to silence him.

“This isn’t- It’s not because of _you_ , okay? I just- I need-“

He didn’t know what he needed. Air, for one. There suddenly wasn’t enough of it in the suit. He stumbled a bit, and then Bucky was there, grabbing onto his forearms and attempting to hold him up – a ridiculous notion. Not even a super soldier could support the weight of a gold-titanium alloy suit.

“Don’t go,” he said, voice desperate. “Please, I’m sorry! Just don’t go. I can- Whatever it is, we can talk about it, yeah? Please? I-“

It wasn’t a conscious decision, too driven by emotion to be anything but pure impulse. Expression twisted in a vicious snarl, Tony let the faceplate of the suit slide back and away, revealing the secret he’d guarded more preciously than any other.

“You want to talk about it? About the fact that a man I’ve known for _years_ , who I’ve trusted with my _life_ , apparently didn’t deem my parents’ deaths important enough to tell me about? You wanna talk about how my teammates found out I wanted to _help you_ and decided it was better to just fucking abandon me and shut me out rather than give me an ounce of trust? How about the fact that they’ve made damn sure I don’t even feel welcome in my own home, the home I provided _them_ to live in? They may have picked you over me, but I’ll be damned if I don’t at least pick myself.”

Bucky’s face was slack with shock, and he didn’t fight it this time when Tony pulled away, faceplate sliding back into place as he stormed out the door. Tony couldn’t bring himself to care. He supposed Agent Romanov had been right after all. He was taking a page out of the narcissist textbook and putting himself first.

.

Honestly, Tony was just waiting for one of the team, probably Steve, to come down to the lab and confront him. Surely Bucky had told Steve what happened. Well, he’d always known his secret identity couldn’t stay secret forever. He just hadn’t expected to be exposed quite like this. He’d always figured it’d happen due to some injury during a fight or something like that. No, instead he’d lost his temper and exposed himself in a fit of pique.

Smooth, Tony. Real smooth.

He was surprised, though, when it was Bucky himself who appeared at the door to his lab space and not one of the others.

“Is it alright if I come in?”

Bucky looked awkward, but he was dressed in a red Henley and jeans as opposed to the black leathers he preferred as the Winter Soldier. His hair was pulled back into a loose bun and he would have looked casual and relaxed if it weren’t for the dark bags under his eyes. He looked like he’d slept about as well as Tony had, meaning not at all. Tony probably didn’t have any right to judge, though. There was no telling where all he had oil smeared after his tinkering binge. It was just how he processed and dealt with things. It was a hell of a lot healthier than some of his previous habits.

“Knock yourself out,” he allowed.

Bucky stepped hesitantly into the lab, glancing around curiously before focusing in on Tony. It struck Tony suddenly that this was the first time Bucky had ever really been in the lab. There hadn’t been a reason for him to visit Tony down here before, and Iron Man had always come out to find him in the common areas.

“I, uh, was hoping we could talk. If you’ve got a minute.”

Tony snorted.

“Yeah, because that’s worked out so well for us the last few times.”

Bucky flinched, but didn’t deny it.

“We haven’t exactly had the best track record lately,” he acknowledged, “but I’m hoping to change that.”

Tony sighed, swiveling around in his chair to face Bucky more fully. He didn’t want to have this conversation, but he also didn’t see any way of getting out of it. Best just to get it over with.

“Sure, whatever you want. If you’re worried about me kicking you out or whatever, don’t. It’s not on the agenda.”

Tony didn’t have any interest in taking anyone’s home away from them. Besides, he’d probably be moving out soon enough anyway, once Steve and the others learned his true identity and kicked him off the team. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to stomach sticking around and having to see them all the time after that. He just didn’t have it in him.

Bucky seemed surprised by the insinuation, though.

“I wasn’t,” he protested. “Worried about that, I mean. I know you better than to think that.”

Tony gave a rueful smile.

“You mean you know Iron Man better than that.”

“Well, you’re him, aren’t you? I kinda doubt you just borrowed his suit to come pay me a visit.”

“And you didn’t even know we were the same person until last night. You can’t say you really know someone when you haven’t even known their name for most of your acquaintance.”

Bucky shifted a bit nervously.

“But you know me, don’t you? Enough that you’re not just gonna kick me out.”

Tony blinked at him, surprised. He supposed his words could seem like they applied to Bucky’s situation, too.

“That’s not what I meant-“

“But it’s true, though,” Bucky interrupted, pressing the issue. “It’s not anything different than what I was doing. I _know you_ , whether you’re going by the name Iron Man or Tony Stark. I know you’d rather chew off your own leg than do anything to make someone else’s life more difficult.”

That was a bit of an exaggeration, but Tony knew a losing battle when he saw one. He just sighed. It wasn’t worth the effort of arguing.

“Yeah, sure, okay. What do you want, Bucky?”

“I wanted to say I’m sorry. I know you said you don’t blame me, and that you weren’t upset because of _me_ last night, but none of this would have happened if it weren’t _for_ me. You had a good thing going on here, a good life with your team, and I just crashed in and messed it all up.”

“Bucky, that’s not even close to true. This kind of thing, with Steve and the others… it wouldn’t be an issue if there weren’t already things going on under the surface. If it wasn’t this, our problems would have come up some other way, in some other situation. You can’t put this on yourself.”

“It didn’t come up some other way, though,” Bucky insisted. “It came up now, with _this._ With _me._ So, I get that you don’t blame me, but I do, and I’d like to help you fix it.”

Tony froze, taken aback.

“What?”

“I’d like to help you fix it,” Bucky repeated, small smile growing across his face. It was nice, Tony had to admit, to actually be able to see his expression. “I know it’ll be a long road, and that trust has been broken, but I’d like to try and help you mend things with the team. However you want that to happen. I haven’t mentioned what happened to anyone, that you’re Iron Man. If you want it to stay secret, you know it’s safe with me.”

Tony just stared at him.

“You’d lie for me?”

Bucky just gave a chagrined shrug.

“It seems the least I can do, really. You’ve always gone out of your way to try and help me, no matter what name you knew me by. Let me help you, this time.”

Something in Tony’s chest eased, unclenched. He wasn’t exactly sure what to do with that. He thought he might like it, though.

“Yeah, okay,” he found himself agreeing. “We could give it a shot.”

Tony decided he could really get used to seeing Bucky smile.


End file.
